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Tonight Gaga is late. The crowd – families in North Face waterproofs, gay couples going berserk, and Gaga’s uber fans known as 'Little Monsters’ who follow her with blind devotion — are irate. 30 minutes on, the air is thick with demanding “Gaga” chants.
Then the 25-year-old New Yorker arrives on stage in a coffin, poised to plough through the hits.
Singles Born This Way and Bad Romance are performed back-to-back with vampish, Madonna-soaked energy. She flits from piano to steps in stilettos, purring her way through a truncated version of her Beyoncé-duet Telephone.
Then comes Poker Face, her biggest and still best hit to date. She ends the song at the piano, punching out Bach’s Toccata and Fuge.
The only real disappointment is the chat (minimal) and the aesthetics. Her main outfit, a black PVC jumpsuit complete with artificial pregnancy bump, is relatively modest and her hair, usually an art work in itself, is a simple monochrome bob. While Gaga’s infamous shows usually blend eye-popping performances with dramatic sets here, the staging appears to have been cobbled together in a hurry.
Halfway through her set though, Gaga musically swerves into piano-jazz territory to stunning effect. Speechless is executed with love and Nat King Cole’s Orange Coloured Sky, which she dedicates to the Royal newly-weds while stroking her trumpeter’s face, is the highlight of the evening.
Much of Lady Gaga’s success comes from making her fans feel complicit in her success. Tonight, by mixing up genres with unnerving skill, she casts her net over Radio 1’s truly broad crowd and it works.
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1. Born This Way
2. Bad Romance
3. Telephone
4. Poker Face
5. Alejandro
6. Orange Colored Sky
7. You & I
8. Edge of Glory
9. Speechless
10. Just Dance
11. Judas
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